Broken Chandeliers and Oven Fires: What Happens When a Real-Estate Pro Damages a Listing?
It was a total accident, and their worst nightmare
By ROBYN A. FRIEDMAN
Fri, May 17, 2024 9:34am
4 min
4 min
Have you ever accidentally damaged a client’s home?
Debby Belt, senior associate, Hammond Residential Real Estate, Chestnut Hill, Mass.
I was representing the seller of a four-bedroom Cape Cod-style home in Newton, Mass., just west of Boston. It was May 2016 and the house was listed for $929,000. It had a beautiful kitchen, with wood cabinets, granite countertops and stainless-steel appliances.
The house went under contract, and it was scheduled for a home inspection. I wanted the house to look pristine for the inspector and buyers, but the kitchen counters were cluttered, so I frantically threw things into drawers, and I put some glassware, baking tins and plates into the oven. When the inspector walked into the kitchen, he turned on the oven to test it without looking inside first. I was in another room at the time, but I smelled something burning, and then heard explosions as the glass shattered.
When I ran into the kitchen, I saw smoke and a small fire in the oven. There was broken glass all over the place, and the kitchen was smoky. Since it was a gas oven, it could have been much worse. The oven was damaged, and the seller wasn’t happy, so I gave her a $500 discount on the commission to offset any damage or credits she would have to give to the buyers. The buyers weren’t too upset, fortunately, because they were probably planning to update the appliances. The home ended up selling for $920,000 with the oven not functioning perfectly. Now, when I meet the inspector, we both still laugh about it.
Jeffrey Kahn, broker, Broker Associates Realty, The Villages, Fla.
In 1995, early in my real-estate career, I was representing the seller of a condominium in a luxury high-rise building on the ocean in Lauderdale-by-the-Sea, just north of Fort Lauderdale. My seller had the mistaken impression that the dining room chandelier was excluded from the sale, so she had it taken down just before closing and replaced it with a less-expensive fixture.
When we did the walk-through the day before closing, the buyer noticed that the original chandelier, which was about 3 feet wide and custom-made from oyster shells and glass on a wrought-iron frame, was missing and, since the contract said that the unit was being sold furnished with everything included in the sale we needed to rectify the situation. The buyer was refusing to close because she loved the chandelier, and my commission—about $30,000, which I was going to split with the other agent—was in jeopardy. The original chandelier was packed in a box on the dining room table, and to make the deal happen, I told the seller I would replace her chandelier with a comparable one if we would rehang the original.
It wasn’t a difficult chandelier, and I’ve done a lot of electrical work in my own homes, so I took down the one hanging from the ceiling. As I started to remove the oyster-glass chandelier from the box, a hairless Sphynx cat jumped on the glass dining room table and rubbed against me. I had never seen a cat in the apartment during the entire listing process, so it scared the heck out of me. I dropped the chandelier, which broke, and I ended up having to pay $8,000 for two new chandeliers and electrician fees. Thankfully, the unit sold for $978,000 and my commission was sufficient to cover the costs. I was just happy the glass dining-room table didn’t break because then my whole commission would have been gone.
Joshua Garner, real-estate agent, The Agency, New York City
In October 2022, I was representing the owner of a Classic Seven co-op on the Upper East Side that was listed for $3.1 million. It had three bedrooms and 2,575 square feet of classic prewar details, with 13 windows and high ceilings. It also had the most particular seller ever. She trusted no one but myself to open up and show the apartment, and it took no less than 30 minutes to prepare and close up each time. There was a written checklist I had to follow, in a specific order, that included the proper angle at which to pull the string for the blinds, how to pick up and strategically fold, stack and put away the series of white sheets she had laid out as runners to protect the bedroom carpets and wearing shoe covers and gloves. She would watch everything from Switzerland via her security cameras and would call me to correct the smallest details.
Prospective buyers were told not to touch anything and to stay on designated walking areas, which were placed a distance from the Ming vases. If they wanted to see the interior of a cupboard or closet, I would refer to myself as Vanna White and would respond to what they instructed. I always warned them ahead of time that she was probably watching and that anything they said or did would be recorded. Buyers would enter with their guard up, which made it difficult. One day, after a showing, I couldn’t get one of the blinds to lower properly. I panicked, but I notified her immediately, and she had a maintenance worker inspect it. The cord had come off the internal spool, and even though it was a quick fix, the seller was livid and ready to withdraw the exclusive.
The only thing that saved the listing was offering to pay $300 to fully replace the mechanism to restore it to new condition. Although there were incidents that upset her during other showings, thankfully, nothing else was ever broken. This co-op, which ended up closing for $2.95 million in October 2023, was the most high-stakes deal I ever worked on.
—Edited from interviews by Robyn A. Friedman
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Kit Braden, an executive at French beauty empire L’Occitane, has spent every winter for the past 13 years at the stone vacation home.
By CHAVA GOURARIE
Mon, May 11, 2026 2 min
2 min
A historic Barbados estate with a 300-year-old villa and 11 acres overlooking the Caribbean Sea is now for sale with a guide price of $22.5 million.
The seller is Kit Braden, chairman of the U.K. branch of French beauty empire L’Occitane Group, whose family has spent every winter for the last 13 years at the island property, known as Fustic Estate.
“It’s very much a family house,” Braden said. “We love having a lot of people there. It’s a collection point to keep everyone together.”
The main villa dates to 1712, though it’s been reimagined and expanded substantially over the years.
It spans 13,000 square feet and features seven en suite bedrooms across three wings, as well as expansive verandas, stone courtyards and rows of louvered doors in gay Caribbean pastels.
In the 1970s, when the home was owned by Charles Graves—brother of British poet Robert Graves—it was reimagined by stage designer Oliver Messel, one of the foremost theater designers of the last century. Messel expanded the home, added a lagoon pool with a natural waterfall and other theatrical features, according to Braden.
“The whole place is a little bit magical,” he said.
The home sits about 350 feet above the water, and surrounded by lush gardens that slope towards the water.
“We look down through our garden—which is about 12 acres of tropical gardens and palm trees and wonderful old mahogany trees—onto the Caribbean,” Braden said.
He and his wife first saw the property on New Year’s Eve 2013, during a quick trip from where they were staying in Grenada.
The couple spent an hour walking the perimeter, some of it still untouched jungle, in the pouring rain.
“By the time we got back, I had fallen in love with it,” Braden said.
His wife, however, wasn’t so sure. But in Braden’s telling, a second visit in sunnier weather with two of their children brought her around.
“She had to be talked into that it was a jolly good idea; now she absolutely loves it,” he said.
When they bought the property, the edge that runs along the waterfront was a jungle, so they cleared the ridge and transformed it into gardens.
They also bought an additional sea-level parcel with two beach cottages, giving the property direct access to the water and the town below via a five-minute walk.
The property also has a 15-person staff, a reflecting pond, an outdoor pavilion suitable for yoga and a commercial grade kitchen that can serve more than 100 guests, according to a brochure from Knight Frank, which posted the listing in March. They did not provide further comment.
For Braden, the property is special because of its natural beauty, its proximity to the town of Saint Lucy and its history—which dates way way back to when the island of Barbados was first formed via tectonic activity.
“It was basically tectonic plates that collided about a million years ago so the seabed is the top of the hill,” Braden said. “We’re on coral rock.”
As a result, Fustic Estate includes an extensive network of caves that were likely used by the Arawaks, a Venezuelan fishing tribe that followed the fish to these islands about a thousand years ago.
“If the fish were good they’d camp here,” Braden said. “There’s evidence that they stayed there in those caves, they lived there in good winters.”
Now it’s someone else’s turn to live on the land shared by Arawaks, the plantation owners of 1712, Charles Graves and the Braden brood.
